The template idea sounds promising, but the same could be achieved by just communicating the fact that you need more information when handed an issue you haven'

The template idea sounds promising, but the same could be achieved by just communicating the fact that you need more information when handed an issue you haven't been involved in discussing beforehand. Make this clear to whoever is your point of contact. Explain to them (and this isn't a trick to get things to go your way) that this is a necessary step the team needs to take to both assist any future remote collaborators, to help with onboarding of ANY new people in the future (what-was-this-code-written-in-response-to kind of questions get answered much more easily this way) and generally promotes a culture of accountability, which is always good to have in a collaborative setting. Then simply annoy whoever could give you information by mailing them or leaving them a couple of messages. This will over time make them more likely to provide all the required information. Arrange your work so that you always have a backlog so that you don't have to work on that specific things every day, and you don't end up really blocked.